


Dead Air

by mageofpie



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Ghosts, Other, Paranormal Investigators, i tried to make this creepy and funny???, idk if i succeeded, the kids are in this, theyre just not of this earthly plane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 11:28:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15218183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mageofpie/pseuds/mageofpie
Summary: The trick to becoming a viral success: go up a mountain where 10 teenagers died horribly and film everything that happens.It’s what they would have wanted.





	Dead Air

**Author's Note:**

> this has been in the works for months my dudes hot damn  
> its been sitting in my google docs unfinished for god knows how long and today i decided to finally fkn finish and post it which is why it may seem rushed at the end and stuff sowwy
> 
> huge thanks to imdisappointingmyparents for helping me on this all those weeks/months ago
> 
> basically an au where they all die and this shitty youtube paranormal investigator duo decide to go up the mountain to film some shit
> 
> doesnt go as planned

“Five years ago, The Blackwood Tragedy rocked the nation. Ten teenagers on a cozy winter retreat turn up dead and tonight, we venture to the top of Mount Blackwood itself to see if there are any answers to be… no- shit, fuck.”

“What are you even doing?”

Mark tutts and pauses the voice recorder.

“I’m trying to record the intro, dumbass.”

“It’s not that hard, man. Bunch of idiot teenagers on a mountain in winter, some weird mass psychosis happens and they all kill themselves and each other. Simple.” Jay grinned, fiddling with his equipment and basking in the frustrated look his best friend gave him.

“Can you at least show a little fuckin’ respect? If any of them stuck around I don’t want them hearing your bullshit and following us home.”

Jay rolled his eyes so dramatically they looked at risk of disappearing into the back of his skull. He gently places his camera on the cable car seat beside him and gives Mark a look that says “are you for fucking serious?”

“Look, man, we both know this shit’s bogus. Nothing we investigate turns up any proof and I doubt this will be any different,” Jay leant back in his seat and crossed his arms, “I’m the skeptic here, anyway. If they’re gonna follow anyone home it’s gonna be me.”

Mark clenches his fist around the voice recorder, the plastic creaking under the pressure, “Doesn’t matter which one of us they follow home, we’re roommates.”

“The point I’m making,” Jay said, “is that nothing’s going to happen. It never does. There’s no ghosts, there’s no demons, there’s no lady in a white dress and black hair standing at the end of a hallway. Let’s just get up there, film some creepy woods, pretend the Ouija board actually moved, and get back down.”

Mark huffs and glances down at the notebook in his lap. He’d written a general outline of what he wanted the intro to be but at this point he’d annotated and changed it enough that the whole page was just a mass of scrawled writing. He looked back at Jay who raised his eyebrows, expecting an answer to a question he didn’t ask.

“Fine. Whatever. But still, it’s only been a few years since they died. It just doesn’t feel right joking about it,” Mark stated, absently tapping his voice recorder.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, man,” Jay shakes his head, still grinning, and picks his camera back up to start fiddling with the settings.

Mark sighed and looked out the condensated window of the cable car. Slowly but surely they were making their way up the mountain. He tried not to think about how ten dead teenagers had made the exact same journey before him.

He couldn't be flippant about these things like Jay was.

He still remembered seeing the countless news stories about the Blackwood Tragedy when it first happened, the anchor gravely informing the nation that eight teenagers had gone up this very mountain to mourn the loss of two more of their friends only to never come back down. There had been live footage of the cabin, still burning from a gas explosion that had pinpointed rescue teams to the exact location they needed to be only for them to arrive and find no survivors. They’d only pulled two charred corpses out of the wreck and it had taken months afterwards for all the bodies to be recovered from various places on the mountain, each with its own grizzly, mysterious backstory.

Of course, none of the photos taken by police at the scenes were officially released to the public, but that didn’t stop people from finding and posting them to shock sites all over the internet. For every picture taken down, ten copies of it cropped up somewhere else.

Mark really wishes he hadn’t found them in the early hours of the morning while doing his research.

Someone had even gone to the trouble of finding their yearbook photos as comparison, too. How nice of them.

The cable car and the station that housed it were showing their age. The one at the top of the mountain was scarcely better than the one at it’s base. 

Mark lightly tread into the small room that housed the control panel for the cable car and whistled, motioning Jay behind him to come inside.

Rust and graffiti had covered every inch of the station, complete with a rendition of one of the monsters conspiracy theorists had claimed were  _ really _ responsible for the deaths. Long limbed and grey, with sightless eyes and a lipless mouth full of sharp, broken teeth. Someone had drawn a dick next to it and a speech bubble that read “suck me pengis”.

“This is good stuff, let’s get a shot of these,” Mark nodded and motions towards the wall covered in the most graffiti, “Try and, uh, avoid the dicks.”

“I mean, most of these are dicks, dude, but sure,” Jay shrugged, settling the camera on his shoulder and slowly panning across the wall, stopping on a few of the creepier drawings and words scrawled there. Mark adjusted the backpack of gear straining his shoulders. According to Google maps, the remains of the lodge were only a couple minutes walk up a marked path, so it wouldn’t be hard to find. To be honest, getting lost wasn’t the biggest fear Mark had right now.

“Dude, this stuff is creepy,” Jay laughed as he said it, moving the camera to focus on some select quotes.

Mark trudged over and pressed his lips into a line.

_ ‘the forest hides strange creatures’ _

_ ‘youre not safe here’ _

_ ‘remember to look behind you’ _

_ ‘dont move’ _

Most prominent were large, angry words in faded red paint, the chipped letters spelling out  _ DIE DIE DIE _

Jay pointed out the paint with a smirk.

“I like the subtlety. Very artistic.”

“Yeah, whatever…” Mark huffed, starting towards the door leading them outside. He tried not to look at the splintered gouges taken out of it from what looked to be an axe.

The few benches and picnic tables scattered about the small clearing reminded Mark that this place used to be somewhere fun and friendly, made for families to come and have vacations, not where ten teenagers met their untimely demises.

Just off the path leading out of the station was a small, modest memorial, a simple wooden cross with pictures of the teens tacked on and around it. Some were of the victims when they were children, but most were candid selfies and group shots from parties. Mark swallowed hard. The blackened, frozen remains of a bouquet sat in front of the cross, its dead flowers blowing feebly in the breeze. Mark motioned for Jay to get a shot of it, feeling uncomfortably like he was disturbing a grave.

“When’s the last time you think anyone was up here?” Jay asked.

Mark shrugged, “Who knows. I mean, with how often it snows you’d never be able to see anyone else’s footprints.”

“What, are you thinking someone’s gonna be waiting for us when we get up there?” Jay teased and Mark grumbled, trudging up the path. He heard Jay let out an exaggerated sigh and start trailing after him, “God, you’re such a fucking pussy today. Cheer up, dick.”

Mark rolled his eyes, “Uh-huh.”

The lodge almost creeps up on them.

It seemingly appeared out of nowhere between the trees, its burnt husk looming in the darkness. The only thing lighting up the area was the moon glinting off the snow and the small flashlight Mark held by his side.

“Woah…” Jay breathed next to him.

“Yeah…”

Surprisingly, most of the building was still in tact but the damage caused by the explosion was clear to see. The wood around the blown out windows and doors was charred and even from the ground Mark could see that most of the roof was missing. In the silence of the mountain, he could hear the wind whistling through the rafters.

“Do you even think we’ll be able to get inside to do the seance?” As he spoke, Jay started recording again, panning the camera from the ground to the hulking building before them.

“I mean, probably. We can get through a window or something. I’m just worried about how structurally sound this thing is.”

“Tell me about it…”

They trudge around the perimeter of the building before eventually managing to get in through a window, avoiding the jagged broken glass still lodged in the panes as best they can. Mark awkwardly hopped as he tries to gain his footing inside and Jay handed him the backpack and camera once he was in.

“Home sweet home, eh?” Jay said.

It was difficult to tell what purpose this room had once served. Pretty much everything had been burned away by the fire, and Mark shivered as snow fell through holes in the ceiling. As he walked through the ruined hall, his footsteps punctuated by the crunch of broken glass, he scanned around with his flashlight, finding nothing of interest but a mostly charred, partially mildewed photograph of the Washington family, somehow not destroyed in the explosion. Most of the faces had been eaten away or else destroyed by the elements, but he recognized the smiling face of Hannah Washington, still largely intact and beaming at the camera.

“Jeez, who needs ghosts when this place is already creepy as fuck, right?”

Mark almost jumped out of his skin at Jay’s voice behind him and turned to see him zooming the camera on the photo.

Before Mark can reply, a loud thump sounded behind them, like someone jumping on the floor. Mark wheeled around, trying to hide his panic, only to find the room empty. His heart still in his throat, Mark turned to Jay, who shrugged.

“I dunno, man. Old house. Probably animals and stuff living in here now.”

“Yeah… probably…” Mark unhelpfully adds, trying to look at every corner of the room at once, “Let’s just set up and get this shit over with.”

Jay stares at him for a moment before sighing and shaking his head. He reaches into the backpack and starts pulling out their equipment while Mark looks around some more.

The floorboards creak under his weight and it certainly doesn’t reassure him of his safety. Most of the room is domineered by a grand staircase, the base of it splintering and caving in, like something heavy had hit it. Even if it was fully intact, Mark doubts he’d want to venture deeper into this house and its oppressive stillness.

Even with the background noise of Jay sorting through their single bag and testing the recording equipment one last time, the lack of noise in here really unnerved him.

The cold breeze fluttered against his skin.

Mark rubbed the cold patch and walked a bit quicker away from the stairs.

He instead walked around them to the back of the room where two more staircases were, descending into the pitch black basement. Mark stood at the top of the stairs and pointed his flashlight into the blackness. The weak moonlight filtering through the destroyed roof was barely enough to illuminate the main room so the entirety of this section was plunged in darkness.

The light shook as he peered into it.

From where he stood, all Mark could see were piles of furniture covered in tarps and a set of double doors. This entire place was built to stir up every fight or flight response within him, apparently.

The cold breeze fluttered against his skin.

Mark rubbed his neck.

“ _ Hello _ _. _ ”

The voice was soft.

Barely there.

Whispered directly into his ear.

Mark spun, letting out a strangled yelp and batted at his neck, almost falling backwards down the stairs as he launches himself away from the voice. Jay snapped his head up.

If he wasn’t already so on edge he could have brushed it off as the wind, or the house, or the fucking raccoons nesting in the rafters. But that was a human voice, no mistaking.

“What are you screaming about? See a bug or something?”

“N-No, I… I just heard a voice.”

Jay groaned. 

“Come the fuck on, man.”

“I’m  _ serious _ , dude!” Mark snapped, hurrying back over to Jay, wanting to get as far away from the stairs as he could, “It was, like… right in my fucking ear. I swear.”

“Right, uh-huh. Save the theatrics for when the cameras on.”

Mark felt frustration bubble up in his chest but quickly squashed it. There was no point in arguing with Jay. Unless something happened to him, he never believed any of Mark’s “encounters”.

The breeze picked up, snow falling faster between the few stubborn timbers that remained of the roof. He flinched as something cold touched the back of his hand.

_ Just the snow. Just the snow. _

“Alright, I think we have enough B-roll,” Jay said, standing up and brushing his knees off. “People don’t want to see us play house hunters. Let’s go find a good place to do a seance and get the hell out of here before my dick freezes off.” He hoists the bag onto his back and gestures for Mark to follow him towards the basement stairs he’d just made a point of getting away from. Mark looks around, sighing and watching his breath spool out and fade into the frigid air, then walks down the steps.

The basement was the only part of the lodge that survived the blast, but that didn’t stop it from being overtaken by mildew and spiders. The corners were so filled up with webs that they formed impenetrable walls of white, and Mark could only imagine the things crawling within. Jay apparently could too, since he was noticeably picking up the pace.

As they walked, Mark sniffed the air nervously, trying to smell anything unusual. According to the police reports, the fatal bout of insanity that did these kids in was due to a gas leak. That’s usually what ghost stories turn out to be. Carbon monoxide and rotten food and bad trips. Of course, none of those things really explained how two of the teens got decapitated.

“Okay. We’re here,” Jay said. Mark stopped and looked around. The room had been turned over exhaustively by the police, but they’d still left plenty of strange things behind. The pictures with the eyes scratched out had been confiscated as evidence, as had the bag of books and tools, but the map of the mountain, covered in pushpin holes and sticky notes remained, as did the wall of monitors. They were shut off and covered in an inch thick layer of dust. No one had been down here for a long time.

Apparently, Josh Washington had been planning his friends’ evening quite meticulously. It was unclear, even now, the extent of his plans but plenty suspected that he’d caused the gas leak, or drugged his friends’ food, just to get the party started.

Ever since the kid’s medical records got leaked, the media had painted him as some sort of diabolical mastermind, or at the very least, utterly unbalanced.

Never mind the fact that he just lost his sisters and his friends were the most logical party to blame. Psychosis was more glamorous than good old fashioned grief.

Jay set down their portable flood light and bathed the small room in a clinical white light, throwing everything that wasn’t illuminated into a harsh shadow.

Jay started setting up the cameras, tripods pointing towards the center of the room. It didn’t look like any of the tables would move easily from their spots so they’d probably have to film everything on the floor.

“How about we set up our equipment here and get rolling, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Mark mumbled, moving the recorders and energy detector to the center of the room, standing where he imagined Josh probably stood many times.

It didn’t take long to set everything up, they’d done it countless times before, but Mark could feel himself becoming more anxious as time went on. He really wanted to get this over with.

Mark shuffled himself in front of the wall of monitors, trying to find the right spot for the camera to center on him. There was almost an irony to it. Josh Washington had filmed his friends’ every move that night and now Mark and Jay were filming up here too. Maybe not irony. Some kind of weird, fucked up karma.

Jay nodded to him behind the tripod.

“You ready?”

“Yeah, let’s do this.”

“Alright.” Jay started up the camera with a small beep and slightly adjusted the angle. “Three, two, one, action.”

Mark felt the rehearsed speech flood out of his mouth. He’d been repeating it in his head since they arrived at the shabby motel at the base of the mountain so it was easy for him to start relaying the history of the mountain, the house, the people, the deaths.

He stuttered and stumbled a few times, muttering curses at the flubbed lines.

He really,  _ really _ wanted to get this over with.

“One of the creepier aspects of this particular case is the fact that only one call made it off the mountain that night. A distress signal was sent from a fire tower to the county ranger station. A young woman cried out for help, claiming that a mysterious killer had murdered one of her friends and was planning to kill everyone on the mountain. Right before the transmission ended, the ranger on duty heard a loud crash and the girl’s screams before the line went dead.” Mark swallowed, his mouth dry.

He’d listened to that radio transmission countless times and it never stopped freaking him out.

“Emily Davis, the girl who sent the transmission, was found dead. Her body hung from a meat hook deep within the mines, along with several of her friends. Disturbingly, most of the bodies had been decapitated, but Emily Davis’s body was mostly intact having only her eyes removed. The coroner suspected that most of the wounds on the victims’ bodies had been sustained before their deaths.”

Mark glanced at Jay’s face for some kind of affirmation that everything was going well so far, but Jay was busy glaring at the camera screen.

Mark braved a look into the encroaching darkness behind Jay where the exit was. It wasn’t logical to think someone was up there with them; the creaking floorboards and splintering steps would have given anyone away, but the sense of a presence nearby wasn’t going away.

Mark nervously wrung his hands and shoved them into his pockets.

“Uh… uh, I-Interestingly enough, another body was also found at the scene who police assumed was the remains of Jack Fiddler, a local recluse and conspiracy theorist. He’d given the police  _ and _ Washington family a hard time for building their lodge on Mount Blackwood, and claimed the land was cursed. He-”

“Woah. Woah, woah,  _ woah _ .”

Jay cut him off, holding up a single finger, eyes trained on one of the monitors behind him. He looked between the small camera screen at whatever was drawing his attention behind Mark a few times.

“Wh-?” Mark started, slightly lifting his arms in confusion. Jay gestured him to turn around and Mark was almost expecting to turn and see a floating sheet with cut out eye-holes with how baffled Jay seemed.

Mark stared at the wall of monitors again and squinted. Whatever Jay was seeing, he couldn’t.

“What? What are you lookin’ at, man?” Mark asked, sounding almost annoyed and turns back around.

Jay frowned and pointed brazenly at one of the screens at the top.

Mark walked over to him and turned again, as if stepping back would give him a better view of-

Oh.

_ Oh. _

Mark inhaled sharply.

Someone had drawn a smiley face in the dust.

Mark licked his lips as a short silence fell over them.

“Very funny, Jay. You do that?” Mark asked, voice shaking, knowing full well his accusation made no sense but hoping to fucking god it was right.

Jay sputtered.

“Are you fuckin’-? How? How the fuck did I do that  _ while _ I was filming?”

“You did it  _ before _ we started then!”

Jay looked like he was hoping Mark would ask that because he pulled the camera off its tripod and went about the task of hooking it up to their laptop to replay the footage. Mark rolled his eyes.

“Look,” Jay started the clip and dragged it towards the end, pointing at the top corner of the capture.

It was hard to tell in the odd lighting and slightly off angle, and Mark would have otherwise wrote it off as a smudge on the lens, but someone was drawing in the dust of the monitor.

Mark let out a stutter of disbelief and turned around to look at the monitors again.

:)

Something so simple and childish and stupid.

Mark turned back to the laptop and replayed the moment, glueing his eyes to the top corner. Next to him, Jay was just as speechless. Mark replayed the clip again, and again, watching as the smooth lines formed in the thick dust with nobody near it.

“This is… I mean, this is real, right? We’re not going fucking crazy down here?”

Jay shook his head, turning to look at Mark with undisguised glee in his eyes.

“Dude… we finally fucking got something!”

“I dunno, man. What if it’s just left over shit from Josh’s whole trap for his friends?” Mark pointed out. “The kid was good with, like, stage tech and shit.”

“Are you fucking serious right now, bro?”

“Are  _ you  _ serious about ghosts? Real-ass ghosts? Things that, I should remind you, no one has ever found any  _ real  _ evidence of, ever?” Mark felt his voice rising. On any other occasion, the two of them finding concrete evidence of ghosts would have made him do cartwheels and backflips and other gymnastic stunts his doughy body was incapable of doing, but something about this case and the setting and the eeriness of it just being a fucking  _ smiley face _ of all things made every atom of Mark’s body seize up in fear. He didn’t want this to be real.

Not this one.

“Mark, dude, this is huge!” Jay stood up straight, Mark following him, and flung his arms out as if to indicate just how huge this was, “We, us two, got video proof of paranormal activity! Like, the writing is literally on the wall.”

“People will just say it’s bad photoshop. We’ll be laughed out of every-”

Jay turned to point at the monitors again and Mark had never seen a smile fade so quickly from someone’s face.

Mark, flustered at Jay’s mood swings, turned again to look at the monitors and felt his heart stutter in his chest.

All the screens had been covered in writing.

Someone had drawn a frowning face next to the smiling one, someone had written “Hello!” and dotted the exclamation point with a heart, someone had simply dragged their hand through the dust. Specks of it still floating through the air having been disturbed after years of being still.

Someone had written “420 blaze it”.

Someone had drawn a dick.

Both of which would have been hilarious had Mark not been so terrified.

It was childish and immature and very much something a group of teenagers would do.

Mark took a subconscious step back. Jay stood his ground and looked around the room, acting like if he tried hard enough he’d manage to see through the astral plane and find where their ghost companions were hiding.

“What’s going on? Who are you?” Jay called out.

Silence.

Mark shivered and it was only now he noticed his breath still spooling out his mouth, the temperature having drastically dropped unnoticed by either of them.

Their flood light flickered.

Suddenly, their laptop started playing the video again by itself, their footage rewinding back and playing hitching, warped clips of Mark’s voice, Frankenstine’d together like a bad editing job. Both of the men jumped and staggered back from it in shock.

_ “Ten tee-eenagers-dead-mines-eyes gouged out-tr-ag-edy-all-dead-” _

“...Fuh-fuck…” Mark breathed, not daring to speak above a whisper.

“What do you want?” Jay asked, his voice still somehow strong. “Why aren’t you able to rest?”

There was another stretch of silence.

_ “Why-r-est?” _

Jay’s mouth flapped, unable to think of a practiced question or statement to follow that up with. He shrugged and momentarily lost his bravado, blowing a raspberry.

“I… I don’t know… oh!” Jay exclaimed, almost making Mark shit himself.

“What?”

“Did we bring that, uh, that fuckin’... the box thing that scans the radio? The super loud one?”

Mark blinked and scanned his fear fueled brain for the words.

“The, uh...the spirit box? Uh, yeah, it-it’s in the bag.” Mark uselessly gestured towards the bag, unsure of what to do with himself.

Jay turned and started rooting through their bag, pulling out spare cables and water bottles. Mark unbelievably felt like he should be making small talk with the ghosts while Jay was gone, like this was some kind of awkward family event. He heard a faint sound, so quiet his ears barely picked up on it. Whispering, soft on the dusty air, coming from nowhere. He got the distinct feeling that the ghosts were laughing at them, these two stupid mortals coming all this way with their fancy equipment and cameras and assumptions.

Jay yanked out a small black box and fumbled with it, dragging out the small speaker that came with it by the wire.

Mark’s hands shook as he took it from Jay, doubting if this was a good idea.

“Uh,” Jay started, looking frazzled, “so this thing, it like, scans the radio frequencies so it’s easier for you to talk to us.”

“ _ We-kno-w. _ ”

“Well, alright, no need for the attitude…” Jay mumbled, looking at Mark expectantly.

Mark huffed and prepared himself for the loud burst of static that was about to fill the small room.

He pressed the button and winced as the white noise suddenly filled the basement, holding the box and speaker in shaky hands.

“So, uh,” Jay threw his hands up slightly in thought, “who… exactly are we speaking to here?”

They got a response quicker than Mark thought they would, the sentences warped and pitched oddly through the layers of static and radio interference.

“ _ A-all-of-us. _ ”

Mark and Jay looked at each other.

“Uh… how many of you are there?”

“ _ Ten. _ ”

Jay looked confused and mouthed “ten?” at Mark who looked just as stumped for a moment before realisation crossed his face and he lightly slapped Jay on the chest.

“The twins.”

Jay’s mouth formed an ‘O’.

“Oh,  _ shit _ dude.”

“ _ Bin-go. _ ”

Despite the volume of the static and how muffled the voice was, there was an almost mocking tone with it.

“ _ The-gang’s-a-all-here. _ ”

“Wait,” Mark asked, “which one of you said ‘hello’ to me before? On the stairs?”

“ _ J-osh. _ ”

Mark felt his blood run cold at the name.

“Oh… why?”

“ _ To-s-care-the-sh-it-out-of-you. _ ”

Jay burst out a laugh but quickly smothered it at the simmering glare Mark shot him.

“Uh, can you, uh, tell us what happened?” Jay asked after recovering from laughter. “The reports said you guys killed each other.”

_ “No. Some-thing-else.” _

Mark’s mind immediately went back to the hideous creature someone had drawn in the cable car station and he licked his lips nervously, “...by what?”

“ _ You-r-mom-s-p-us-sy.” _

“Jesus  _ Christ _ .” Mark snapped, gritting his teeth. “What are you, twelve?”

_ “No. Ten. Weren’t-you-list-en-ing?” _

A harsh, staticy noise came through the speaker, fluctuating like harsh laughter.

Mark felt all his previous fear evaporate from his body. The first and probably only tangible evidence of ghosts he’d ever gotten and said ghosts were a bunch of stupid, immature teenagers.

Just his luck.

“Jay, you’re on the same level as these guys,  _ you _ talk to them.”

Jay scoffed.

“God, Mark, don’t be such a downer.”

Mark yelped at a sudden, very real feeling smack on his ass.

“ _ Yeah-Mark. Light-en-up. _ ”

“What the  _ fuck?” _

Jay turned to him, a little gleam of amusement in his eyes.

“Dude, what?”

“One of them just smacked me on the ass!”

_ “Wasn’t-me.” _

“That’s sexual harassment, dick cheeses.”

“ _ Nine-one-one-a-g-host-smack-ed-my-flat-past-y-a-ss. _ ”

“Hey, come on,” Jay said, his tone mock serious, “just because you guys are undead doesn’t give you any right to violate terms of consent.”

_ “Boo. You’re-no-fun.” _

_ “N-o-he’s-r-ight.” _

_ “S-t-op-be-ing-bor-ing-Sam.” _

“Great, now they’re having an argument,” Mark grumbled.

“Are you guys ten separate spirits or, like, one fused entity?” Jay asked, shaping his hands in a deformed ball shape. “Do you usually act as one?”

“ _ Ye-ah-we-have-g-host-or-gies-all-the-time. _ ”

“ _ Gim-me-your-ect-op-las-m-bro. _ ”

Mark rubbed his temples, “Just answer the fucking question.”

_ “Used-to-be-se-par-ate,”  _ one of them said at last.  _ “Alone.” _

“So, what, you...fused?” Mark asked.

_ “Not-ex-act-ly.” _

“ _ We-can-be ap-art.” _

_ “We just-don’t-want-to-be.” _

It was hard to differentiate between the voices through the static and Mark’s ears were already straining to understand them through how loud it was. There were subtle differences in tone and inflection, but between the radio static and the continued use of recycled footage from the laptop, he couldn’t even tell if the ghost speaking was a boy or a girl.

“... why not?”

There was a brief stretch of silence and Mark had the horrible feeling that he’d overstepped a boundary.

“ _... lonely. _ ”

It was the clearest word they’d gotten and somehow that made it worse.

“ _ This mountain it’s… _ ”

“ _... cursed. _ ”

The words were coming through clearer now. Or maybe Mark was just listening so intently he was blocking out the harsh static and breaks in speech. Jay lightly tapped him on the shoulder and Mark turned to see him giving him a confused but worried look. He mouthed the word “cursed?” at him and, not really knowing what to say, Mark only shrugged.

“ _ There was… a man… he… warn-ed us. _ ”

“ _ But it w-as too late. _ ”

“ _ They we-ere so fast _ .”

“What were fast?” Mark asked quickly, feeling his heart stutter.

If it were possible, the room got colder, and both Mark and Jay felt a sudden wave of fear and sadness that wasn’t their own wash over them. They shared another look of confusion and horror.

The silence was longer this time, and Mark felt a horrible guilt settle over him, over the emotions that weren’t his.

He didn’t think they’d get an answer.

“Where are you all?” he quickly asked, wanted to break the atmosphere, “I mean, are you stuck in this lodge? On this mountain?”

“ _ We’re a-all around yo-ou. _ ”

Mark took a subconscious step towards Jay, suddenly horrified at the prospect of being surrounded by ghosts of dead teenagers.

The voices were certainly getting clearer though, like they were getting the hang of using the spirit box. Mark wondered how long it had been since any of them had spoken to someone other than themselves. The voice that came next was distinctly female, but low and raspy even through the static.

“ _ Yes, we’re st-uck here. _ ”

“ _ In t-the h-ouse. _ ”

“ _ In the mine-s. _ ”

“ _ On the mountain. _ ”

They came one after the other, speaking like one but separate. He could hear different pitches, tones, different people behind the voices. Different children.

He heard Jay take a shaky breath beside him.

“Do you… can we take a picture? To see if we can see you?”

A scratchy, dry laugh came through, “ _ Sure. _ ”

“ _ Don’t g-et too scared, though. _ ”

“ _ We’re no-ot as pretty as we u-used to b-e. _ ”

The last part was followed by another static like laugh and Mark saw Jay lean down to reach for their digital camera in the corner of his eye. Jay quickly turned it on and focused it on the doorway they’d come through, snapping a picture with an obnoxiously bright flash.

Both Mark and Jay huddled around the camera, pulling up the still and almost immediately recoiled at what it showed.

On either side of the doorway, which from Mark and Jays perspective was empty, were two definitely there, solid black silhouettes. One was taller and wider than the other, practically dwarfing its companion. Mark squinted at the small screen and held it steady in Jay’s trembling hands, zooming in slightly.

On both shadows, there was a line of nothingness on where their necks would be, like their heads were floating from their bodies.

“Who… who is this?” Mark asked cautiously, pointing to the figures in the photo with his middle and index finger.

“ _ Chris and Ash-ley. _ ”

Mark felt his stomach drop.

The two who’d been decapitated.

“Jesus…” Jay muttered, snatching the camera away from Mark, now snapping pics around the room with gusto.

“ _ Are y-ou scared? _ ”

“... a little.”

“ _ Dope. _ ”

Another snicker came through the spirit box.

“Dude, these photos are fucking unreal.”

Mark blinked as the camera was shoved into his face and Jay started clicking through the photos he’d just taken of different corners of the room.

Every single one had a shadowy figure propped against the wall. Some were leaning against it, some were practically merging with each other, but they were all different sizes and shapes. Even though it was only an outline of a person, he could still tell they were all staring straight at the camera.

They really were surrounded.

“What do you guys even  _ do _ up here?”

“ _ Not-hing, really. _ ”

“ _ Not m-much to-o do. _ ”

“ _ No on-e’s been for a while. _ ”

“ _ It’s just us. _ ”

Every sentence was immediately followed by another, they were almost talking over each other.

“Have you ever tried to leave?”

There was an abnormal silence that followed the question.

“Did they hear yo-?”

“ _ Go.” _

“...what?”

“ _ Fu-ck-ing-go.” _

Mark and Jay looked at each other with mirroring faces of bewilderment. The voices were distant again, quiet and scared, jumbled together into one off-key noise.

“Why?” Jay asked hesitantly.

“ _ They-re-clo-se. We ca-an feel the-m.” _

“ _ In the wo-ods.” _

_ “In the mine-s.” _

_ “They-re every-where.” _

“What? Who?”

Radio silence.

“What are you talking about?”

_ “Mon-sters.” _

Their flood lamp flickered again.

“Monsters?”

_ “Killed us.They’ll ki-ill y-ou to-o. Please. Go.” _

“I don’t understand--”

_ “GOLEAVEPLEASEJUSTGOFUCKPLEASE.”  _ The radio screeched and whined with white noise. Their flood lamp surged, the white light blinding and overpowering. Distanly, over the static, Mark heard a strange sound, like a screech, distinctly organic in origin. An electronic whine filled the room and their laptop and lamp simultaneously cut out, plunging the small room into darkness.

The spirit box still screeched loudly and Mark fumbled in the dark to turn it off, suddenly filled with a raw animal fear of being heard.

The silence that followed was almost as deafening as the white noise, all he could hear with his and Jay’s breathing.

“...shit.” Jay muttered.

Mark pat himself down and felt the bump of his flashlight in his coat pocket, juggling it and the spirit box to turn it on. The small beam barely illuminated the basement and Jay immediately began packing their stuff back up. Mark was almost inclined to make him stop and try and get more footage while they were still up here but fuck, this whole situation could go fuck itself at this point.

Their light source darted around the room as Mark shoved the spirit box back into the backpack and he started helping Jay haphazardly stuff wires into it too.

“Can you even remember the way out?” Mark asked, voice shaking.

“Uh…” Jay didn’t answer, slamming the laptop shut and cramming it into the already rammed bag, “I mean, parts of it.”

Mark whined in frustration and quickly zipped the bag up, hoisting it onto his back while Jay picked up the camera and they both hurriedly walked back the way they’d came, hoping something would jog their memory on the way out.

As if on queue, a door they’d just walked past creaked ajar and Mark felt a frigid breeze on the back of his neck. He could take a hint.

“This way,” he tugged on Jay’s coat and flicked his head towards the door, nudging it open with his foot.

The journey back to the room with the caved in stairs went a lot quicker this time, mainly because of how fast they were walking, and Mark never thought he’d be happy to see this place again.

Jay made a beeline to the window they’d shimmied through and practically dove through it, barely showing concern for the broken glass sticking out of it.

Mark hurried after him, unceremoniously throwing the backpack out first and hoisting his leg onto the window sill. Jay grabbed his arm to steady him.

They both froze.

Distantly, they heard an elk cry out, its bellow turning to a high-pitched squeal before abruptly being cut off. Wet tearing and crunching sounds followed shortly thereafter.

Mark and Jay stared at each other, the former’s hands going suddenly clammy.

“ _ Fucking go _ . ”

A voice behind him barely made its way into his ear, barely registered in his mind. The voice was scared and angry and sounded like layers and layers of voices stacked and intertwined. Those ghosts. Those kids. Those  _ children. _

_ You don’t have to tell me fucking twice. _

Mark yanked himself out of the lodge using Jay’s arm, feeling a shard of glass barely graze his inner thigh.

They both frantically clambered down the path they’d so leisurely strolled up before, Jay shoving Mark’s arm in panic despite both of them moving at a rapid speed.

They heard the screech again, closer this time.

“Jesus fucking  _ Christ _ !” Jay cursed, barreling through a snow covered branch and Mark ducked under it to avoid smacking himself in the face with it. He wheezed and felt his chest become tight with exertion.

_ Fucking asthma. _

“Go… go and start the -  _ fuck _ \- start the cable car!” Mark swung his arm forward in a “go on motion” despite being behind Jay. He didn’t fully appreciate how quick Jay was to speed in front and abandon Mark but his mind was too addled with fear to care.

The clearing came into view and Mark never thought he’d be happy to see that shitty, rusted station again. Jay had already busted through the door and Mark could hear the pained sound of old gears coming to life once again.

Mark clutched at the stitch in his side and whined painfully, limping as fast as he could to the ajar door. Jay stuck his head out, face crumpled into one of utter terror.

“Hurry the fuck up, Ma- AH, HOLY  _ FUCK _ , WHAT IS  _ THAT _ ?!”

Mark had barely turned his head to see where Jay’s shaking hand was pointing before the image was etched into his mind forever.

The cable car graffiti artist really hadn’t done these things any justice.

It was a skin and bones and milky white eyes and teeth so long and sharp and vicious they wouldn’t all fit into its mouth.

A mouth that opened and released a sound that reverberated through his chest and set off some primal fear deep in his soul, something buried and hidden away specifically to deal with monstrosities only made for sleep paralysis nightmares.

Mark screamed back, animalistic fear washing through his body and making him forget the superficial pain in his side.

The thing with too many teeth and the limbs that were spindly and pale and wrapped with thin, pale skin and matted with congealed blood launched itself across the small clearing and Mark barely felt Jay drag him through the doorway before he was slamming it shut and shoving him, still screaming, into the already moving cable car.

Mark stared at the door through the fogged window and watched in abject horror as the thing tore through it like paper mache. The cable car was already a good distance away from the station and the monster screamed at them from the railing, like it was upset, like it couldn’t follow them despite how much it wanted to.

Neither he nor Jay looked away from it, the fear that if they did it would end up closer somehow, like they were keeping it away from sheer willpower and staring alone.

The further they got, the fainter the screams.

It almost sounded like wind.

Yet neither of them spoke.

They didn’t speak as they got off the cable car, and they didn’t speak on the drive back into town.

Mark was amazed that Jay even fell asleep that night, bundled under several blankets in their motel room.

The TV droned in the background and stared at Mount Blackwood from their window, its form looming over them like it was staring at him.

He wasn’t even surprised when he opened their camera memory card to find all their files corrupted.

Mark stared at the laptop screen, listening to Jay’s heavy breathing in the opposite bed, the sit-com repeat playing on the boxy TV.

Outside, the wind screamed.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading my dudes!!! sorry if it was kinda rushed at the end dhsjcbfksbc
> 
> if u liked blease hit me up with a review!!


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